Bunny

I loved the surreal/horror aspects and the writing was great. However, there are a couple major things I can't get past that prevent me from loving it.

Most importantly was that the story is about this group of women manufacturing men–then being torn apart by fighting over a man–without much textual evidence of real life men being dangerous, disappointing, or otherwise lacking felt pretty bad from a feminist perspective, right?? I think it could have worked if the theme leaned into why these women needed to make their drafts/darlings/whatever. It felt close to suggesting that the women only wanted to spend time with men created by other women, that they sought fulfillment in the minds of women and not men, but it didn't follow through on that or have much of a queer reading that would support that.

Secondly, I just couldn't get a mental image of the four “Bunnies.” Maybe it's a generational thing, but I just can't picture literary grad students who love Kate Bush and Sylvia Plath and also love kittens/cupcakes/sparkles. This just didn't compute to me, but maybe it's intentional to be off-putting.